Konkani and cricket is the unlikeliest of combinations but strangely football-crazy Goa has suddenly found itself in the cricket spotlight with the latest Nike commercial, released as a prelude to the World Cup .
Nike took just a minute and 59 seconds to blend the two into a powerful, and hugely successful concoction that Nike believes is amongst their best commercials. And, with the entire globe of cricket-watching lovers dancing to the new Nike commercial, which features a remix of late Chris Perry’s song Bebdo, Nike seems to have got it right.
Nike’s latest advertisement exploding on television screens is its first cricket commercial. The commercial captures the spirit of Indian street cricket with a heady mix of great visuals and lively music.
Shot in Karjat, near Mumbai, the surprise element in Nike’s commercial is not cricket – it was always a question of when, not if – but a Konkani song in the background that catches immediate attention.
“I have grown up listening to Konkani songs. Somehow, a lot of the songs of the 70s, mainly Lorna’s, stuck in my head all these years and I thought it would be a great tribute to my village and my roots to showcase the richness of Konkani music in a truly world class advertisement for a truly global brand,” Agnello Oswin Dias, Senior Vice-President of J Walter Thompson told Herald.
The Sarzora-born, Mumbai-based brain behind the Nike commercial first played Bebdo to his director — Abinay Deo — in his car on a Mumbai road.
“He was truly blown by it. We decided to never broach the idea before hand with anybody but just put it on to the film when we finished editing and send it to the client all the way to Portland, Oregon, USA,” informs Agnello.
Since the lyrics of late Chris Perry’s Bebdo – sung by Lorna — would not go with the visuals in the film, Agnello re-wrote the words himself to match the intensity of the game and the commercial.
Thereafter, it was re-composed with Ram Sampat.
Ella Castellino was chosen to sing the catchy number, and the singer – with roots in Assagao – cannot stop raving about the experience. “We had a blast during the recording,” Castellino told Herald in a telephonic conversation from Mumbai.

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